


you'll be fine

by mxjules



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Post-Break Up, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:26:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26904343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mxjules/pseuds/mxjules
Summary: Tetsurou is not handling the breakup well.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 9
Kudos: 53





	you'll be fine

**Author's Note:**

> So the wonderful Kyrye updated NOSB today, which you should absolutely read if you haven't yet, and there was this passage that got me thinking:
> 
> "And that if he stays in that apartment that smells of the one person he has ever fallen in love with, he might just shave his head."
> 
> Kyrye, if you read this by chance, thank you (or I'm sorry) for the motivation LOL
> 
> Other than that, I listened to Hot Mulligan's album you’ll be fine while writing this, which I highly recommend! It's a great record!
> 
> (I don’t think the links work, but fuck it. I’m about to lose hair over trying to fix them. 💀)

It’s a three day weekend, so Tetsurou is spending his weekend the way that he usually does when he’s left to his own devices; he’s trying his best to find the bottom of whatever bottle is most convenient.

Today, it’s wine. He stocked up on his way home from work the night prior, knowing that none of his friends would be available this particular weekend and that he’d be in no mood for going out. At this point of the night, he has made his way through two and a half bottles since he started at eleven o’clock this morning.

He’s well and truly drunk now, partially because he hasn’t forced himself to eat a proper meal ; snacks and the sparse water he remembers to drink can only carry him so far. He’s got some shitty American romantic comedy on his shitty television, but he’s only halfway paying attention to it— he’s got his head between his knees and both hands fisted in his hair, which has grown much more unruly since he became single nearly eight months ago.

Tetsurou puts on a good show. Most of the people he knows think he’s perfectly well adjusted to his new life, with only his closest friends knowing that some of his coping mechanisms aren’t exactly… healthy. He knows, he  _ knows _ he shouldn’t be doing this and he swears he can stop at any time, but the ache in his chest that seeps into his bloodstream like thick, unforgiving tar only lessens when he can make his entire mind and body numb. It’s not a solution, he knows, but it’s all he can do to keep himself from sinking.

_ “Kuroo-san, you should be embarrassed by this thing on your head,” he says, voice like honey, as he slides his fingers through Tetsurou’s hair for the very first time. _

He shudders at the thought, pulling harder at his ebony strands. He doesn’t understand how long it’s going to take him to come to terms with the fact that sometimes, things don’t work out— even if those things were both the most precious and the most miserable moments of his life for the near decade they were together. He’s so  _ fucking _ mad that he wasted all of his time on someone that…

He breathes in, deep, before sighing. He’s been on this train of thought before, and it ultimately leads him nowhere pleasant— not that he’s anywhere pleasant right now. He grabs the halfway full bottle of wine and upturns it, taking a long drink, ignoring the bitter burn at the back of his throat and the way that it settles sour in the pit of his stomach.

_ They’re sitting on the couch, watching some nature documentary on Netflix. Tetsurou has his head in his lap, and he has one hand woven through Tetsurou’s hair.  _

_ “You know,” he mumbles, eyes looking down at Tetsurou in a tender way that took him months to earn, “I’m starting to get used to this rat’s nest you call hair.” _

He groans, and stands up when he can’t bear to sit on the same couch alone. He paces back and forth in the cold, lonely living room with the bottle in one hand and the roots of his hair grasped in the other. The finale movie continues to play in the background, but he ignores it as he slips deeper into memories he’d much rather forget. He takes another big gulp from the bottle.

He  _ hopes _ that it will help.

He  _ knows _ that it won’t.

The movie ends, and he finds himself rooted in place from his pacing, standing in front of a photo of the two of them that he hasn’t had the guts to take down yet. He can see his reflection in the glass, illuminated by the yellow lighting of the hallway. His hair is long, way too long, and it’s sticking up in all different directions because he hasn’t had the wherewithal to drag himself into a shower yet. His eyes are red rimmed and puffy, but not from crying— he  _ never _ cries— and his mouth is still set in a frown even as he brings the glass bottle back up for another drink. The wine is starting to run low, and Tetsurou doesn’t want to think about what it means for him when he gets anxiety realizing that he only has one more bottle left in the apartment after this.

Staring at the photo taken six years ago does nothing to quell the bile rising in his throat. He still doesn’t understand how something so wonderful could have gone so bad. 

He tries not to be bitter. He understands that feelings change;  _ people _ change. Sometimes, there’s no identifiable catalyst; it’s not that Tetsurou wasn’t enough, it’s just that they became… different, through no fault of either party. To think that love could possibly be enough to save every relationship is a child’s fantasy, no matter how long a relationship might have lasted. Objectively, Tetsurou knows that it isn’t a reflection of success or of failure, but it simply is what it is. That doesn’t make his chest ache any less.

_ “Come on, moonshine,” Tetsurou murmurs with all of the tenderness that he could muster, “Let me see that beautiful face.” He pulls the arm slung over Kei’s face, kissing his nose and reveling in the blush that creeps over Kei’s pale cheeks. _

_ Tetsurou is looking down at Kei, marvelling at the overwhelming fondness in his eyes. He only gets to admire him like this, when it's just the two of them, late at night when Kei doesn’t need his glasses. The flecks of gold in his eyes are caught by the moonlight pouring in from the window, and they remind Tetsurou of the little velvet box in his nightstand drawer, wherein a simple band of the same color lies. Kei smiles, and Tetsurou feels like he’s unstoppable in the same way he feels unstoppable every time he sees it; it’s small, but it’s for him, and him alone. _

_ One of Kei’s hands reaches up and entwines with the hair on the back of Tetsurou’s head. “Your bed head is still ridiculous, Tetsu.” _

_ Tetsurou throws his head back in a laugh. “That might be true, but you love it.” _

_ “Yeah,” he says before pulling Tetsurou down to meet his lips, “maybe so.” _

He slams his free hand into the wall, rattling the frame, as he finishes the rest of the bottle. He hates himself when he gets like this— it’s embarrassing. He really is doing okay, most of the time, but right now he can’t stop thinking about every moment he squandered, picking through ten years worth of memories with a fine toothed comb, trying to figure out where he went wrong while knowing full well there’s nothing that he could have done to change this outcome.

That small smile  _ used _ to be his; he doesn’t remember how long it had been since he’d seen it reach Kei’s eyes. The laugh, delicate like a chime on a breezy day, now lived on only in his head, twisted as it is; in the last few months of their relationship, that laugh he loved became a hollow mockery of what it once was. The voice, smooth as silk, that whispered to him countless secrets and confessions over the years; when Kei left, that voice harbored nothing but regret and pity. The hands that used to hold him firmly are probably passing through someone else’s hair right now. 

He knows this as fact, because he has no self control and found out from a photo he shouldn’t have seen in a moment of weakness, and he hurt himself realizing that Kei is already seeing that blond on his team with a mean sneer. Tetsurou’s hair might be bad, sure, but at least he didn’t look like a fucked up tennis ball. He chuckles mirthlessly to himself, walking over to the kitchen where he throws the empty bottle with much more force than necessary into the recycling can that is nearly overflowing with empty bottles of a similar nature. 

In time, Tetsurou will find himself happy for Kei. He loves him, truly, and he’ll eventually come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t they weren’t right for each other. He might have been, for a while, and he’ll be able to appreciate that for what it is in a few months, but right now he can’t see anything but white hot regret and unbearable loathing. 

He hates that he couldn’t find the words to make Kei feel like he was loved.

He hates that he wasn’t able to convince Kei that a decade was too long of a relationship to throw away.

He hates that it’s been months, and he still sometimes finds himself struggling as if Kei left yesterday.

He hates himself, and the way his coarse hair feels like straw in his hands. 

It feels wrong.

He grabs the last bottle of red that was standing alone on the counter, like an omen, before twisting the cap off and taking a long, lonely drink. Tears he swears that he will never shed gather at the corners of his eyes as he looks at the time, blinking forlorn on the microwave.

3:08 AM. Nothing good ever happens after three.

He puts the bottle down on the counter with enough strength that makes him worry that he cracked either the bottle or the tile, and pulls again at his hair with both hands. He hates it, he hates the way it’s making him feel, and he hates that there’s nothing he can ever do to make himself feel anything at all other than the vast emptiness and futility fo existing.

Suddenly, Tetsurou has an idea. A grin cracks his face, maniacal in its emptiness, and he marches himself towards the bathroom. Underneath the sink is a small kit that he used to cut Kei’s hair; it’s one of the very, very few things that Kei forgot to take with him when he left. He slams on the light before rummaging through the cabinet, pulling out the small black case with enough cheer that it’s as if he isn’t about to make a terrible, horrible drunken decision. 

The clippers stare back at him, mocking; there's just a bit of blond hair stuck between the blades, and it’s enough to make Tetsurou worry that he’s going to vomit at the sight. He shakes his head, pretending that the room isn’t spinning around him, and looks at himself in the mirror. It takes him a second to focus, closing one eye so that he can choose which one of his reflections he wants to look at. He fumbles with the cord on the clippers as he plugs it in, and it weighs in his hand like lead. He flicks it on, and the buzz as it whir to life fills him with more anticipation than he’s felt in the last six months.

He lifts the clippers and buzzes a clean, if not crooked, line through the hair on the top of his head, just to the right of center. He keeps going, watching as his too long, too greasy hair falls on the bathroom counter and the floor. The sound of his hair being cut is almost cathartic, the methodical hum a comfort in the otherwise silent apartment. Laughter bubbles in his chest as he watches himself in the mirror, mesmerized by the empty trail the clippers leave in its wake, and all of his wretched hair is gone before he realizes fully that it’s happening. He feels like he’s having some sort of out of body experience as he stands there, clippers in hand, cackling as if he just won a contest. He laughs until tears gather in the corners of his eyes, threatening to spill, before he finally calms himself, setting the clippers back down in the case. He spins to leave the bathroom much too quickly, stumbling against the wall before he lunges for the toilet, all too familiar with the lurch he felt in his stomach.

Tetsurou is kneeling over the porcelain, choking out the blood red contents of his stomach, wondering why he does this to himself. Once again, it’s as if he’s looking down on himself from another place; the sweat gathered on his brow is embarrassing, and the wine-tinged saliva dripping down his chin is downright pathetic. Even in the state he’s in now, he realizes that, and allows himself another humorless chuckle as he wipes the wetness off his chin with the back of his hand. He rinses his mouth out in the sink, entirely ignoring the mess in the bathroom and the unpleasant taste of bile in his mouth.

Those are problems for tomorrow’s Tetsurou.

He drags himself to bed, and he falls asleep after spending an hour staring at his ceiling, wishing that the room wasn’t spinning. Of course, his traitorous thoughts won’t give him a moment’s rest, even like this.

_ Kei plays with Tetsurou’s bangs as they lounge side by side in bed. “I know I don’t say it often,” his voice is almost like a whisper, nearly missed by Tetsurou’s sleep addled brain, “But I love you.” _

When Tetsurou wakes up the next day, his head is itchy and his mouth tastes like regret. He figured that he was going to overdo it last night, given how he had stocked up, but he didn’t expect to come out the next day feeling  _ quite _ this awful. He reaches up to run his hand through his bed head when he freezes.

“Fuck,” he whispers to himself, scrambling out of bed and stumbling to the bathroom. His head is pounding, and his heart drops when he flicks the light on; the toilet is tinged red with wine, and there is hair  _ everywhere. _ It’s all over the floor, on the counter, filling the basin of the sink; if he went back to his room, he’d find loose hair on his pillowcase and sheets, too. The clippers are shoved haphazardly in their case, which was neither closed nor put away properly. He finally braves a look at himself in the mirror, and his heart shatters all over again when he sees himself.

There are little specks above his eyes, tiny burst capillaries from how hard he had vomited the night before, and the red rims around his eyes are much worse than they were. But more tragic than that, his hair is  _ gone. _ He doesn’t know how he’s going to play this one off; none of his friends are stupid enough to believe that he did this in his right mind.

Small, stupid hairs that he had missed stick up without method all over his scalp, and there’s a spot behind his ear that he missed entirely. He tugs at it, and realizes this is the rock bottom that he needed to hit before he could stop making excuses for himself.

There’s nothing that Tetsurou can do to fix this, so Tetsurou does the only thing that he can think of.

He sinks down to the floor, and he cries.

**Author's Note:**

> I know it feels bad, but Kuroo will be fine, I promise.
> 
> If it feels like I'm projecting, it's because I totally am! I was in a relationship for ten years (it's been almost exactly two years now since it ended), and the person I dated wouldn't 'let' me cut my hair; it was about four feet long at it's longest point. It went past my ass, and I hated it. After we broke up, I kept it long for over a year. I told myself that if I cut it, they might not want me back. Anyway, one night, I was drinking heavily and had some sort of break around 3AM, and I cut it about chin length. It was liberating, but when I woke up the next day and realized I cut about 3.5 ft of hair on a whim, I couldn't do anything but cry. It wasn't permanent, but it felt like like something earth shattering that I couldn't take back. I love it now, and I'm always longing to cut it, but I did have a rough go of it for a while. Don't worry, though! I'm doing much better now!
> 
> Thank you for reading! Yell at me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/juuleslovesyou)


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